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New Site.. Please share your comments


mcksly

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I've just started selling handmade pearl jewellery through my website. I have no computer background, and built the site by searching through these forums for tips and tricks. Please give me your honest feedback on the site, and include how I can fix it.

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

www.Bella-Blanca.com

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Trivial Point! A quick look using my 1152*864 screen shows that your oscommerce.gif is only 1001 wide!

 

Thanks! I built the site on my old laptop which had a smaller screen than my new one, so when I opened the page on my new computer I noticed the same thing.. But if I make it smaller then the entire page doesn't load in one screen on smaller computers.. it has a click and drag scroll at the bottom.. so i don't know which is better to cater to.. the bigger screens or the smaller ones

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Thanks! I built the site on my old laptop which had a smaller screen than my new one, so when I opened the page on my new computer I noticed the same thing.. But if I make it smaller then the entire page doesn't load in one screen on smaller computers.. it has a click and drag scroll at the bottom.. so i don't know which is better to cater to.. the bigger screens or the smaller ones

 

make your site 960pixel wide. It is standard now for fixed width. Only 5% of people are using 800x600 pixel today.

I love oscommerce and OS software! I'm not a programmer, I'm only a learning boy and a translator :) I love full contribution packages!

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make your site 960pixel wide. It is standard now for fixed width. Only 5% of people are using 800x600 pixel today.

 

How do I do that? Is there a section in oscommerce admin?

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A few for me (as usual :P ):

 

1. Header graphic needs to fade to white at the right. This will allow it to be shown on larger screens without looking like it's a "block" graphic.

 

2. Images are large and squashed into thumbnails. This increases load time and makes the images look poor. Use a contribution that allows you to have a thumbnail preview and a different large image.

 

3. The Pink header writing on pink background is a little difficult to read on my laptop (ok on desktop pc). Maybe add a shadow to it to highlight it a bit more.

 

4. There's only onle language. Drop the flag/box completely to free up space.

 

5. Buttons have white backgrounds. Maybe swap buttons completely, or add transparent backgrounds)

 

6. Load time is a little slow on mine (mainly cos of images). Have you got GZip enabled in admin? This will speed up your site, but will stop it working with browsers like IE3 (old ones).

 

HTH

Danny

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Thanks! I built the site on my old laptop which had a smaller screen than my new one, so when I opened the page on my new computer I noticed the same thing.. But if I make it smaller then the entire page doesn't load in one screen on smaller computers.. it has a click and drag scroll at the bottom.. so i don't know which is better to cater to.. the bigger screens or the smaller ones

 

I added this contribution.. but now my header is bigger than the body of the web page.. How do I make the body extend to match the header now?

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The header and webpage size match on my screen. When developing a website make sure that you regularly delete all Temporary Internet Files and all Offline Content, and set the Browser to always serve up the latest version of pages you visit - otherwise you'll get odd results because of caching on your PC.

 

My points:

 

1. No SSL - absolutely necessary

2. No Meta Tags

3. No SEO URLs

4. No thumbnailing (each of your 3 homepage product images is alomost 1 Mb in size).

 

Vger

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The header and webpage size match on my screen. When developing a website make sure that you regularly delete all Temporary Internet Files and all Offline Content, and set the Browser to always serve up the latest version of pages you visit - otherwise you'll get odd results because of caching on your PC.

 

My points:

 

1. No SSL - absolutely necessary

2. No Meta Tags

3. No SEO URLs

4. No thumbnailing (each of your 3 homepage product images is alomost 1 Mb in size).

 

Vger

 

Thanks for your reply!

 

I compressed all the files so they now load much better.

 

I tried to add an SSL a while back... got totally frustrated and gave up.. Any tips or hints for adding it to be a bit easier?

 

The meta tags and SEO URL's are to make it easier to search right? I added the Google sitemap contribution, and I thought I'd added in metatags to my code.. but Google didn't index any of my pages.. and I'm not sure what I did wrong there.. or how I put metatags in.. (as I thought I already had). Any further clues would be most appreciated! Thanks!

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Thanks for your reply!

 

I compressed all the files so they now load much better.

 

I tried to add an SSL a while back... got totally frustrated and gave up.. Any tips or hints for adding it to be a bit easier?

 

The meta tags and SEO URL's are to make it easier to search right? I added the Google sitemap contribution, and I thought I'd added in metatags to my code.. but Google didn't index any of my pages.. and I'm not sure what I did wrong there.. or how I put metatags in.. (as I thought I already had). Any further clues would be most appreciated! Thanks!

 

Also, about the SSL, payments are made via paypal, and my host provides a shared SSL. How can I take advantage of this?

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contact your host and they SHOULD be able to help you get the SLL installed on your website. that is, if your host has decent customer support

A great place for newbies to start

Road Map to oscommerce File Structure

DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

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contact your host and they SHOULD be able to help you get the SLL installed on your website. that is, if your host has decent customer support

Thanks! I got an SSL from InstantSSL comodo and my host set it up for me. Now I am trying to add the logo on the site using the contribution Comodo Assured v1.2 (InstantSSL)

 

In the instructions is says to add this code into several files (eg. includes/index.php):

 

--add this before the existing <script> tag
<script language="javascript" src='<?php echo (($request_type=='SSL') ? 'https://secure.comodo.net' : 'http://www.trustlogo.com'); ?>/trustlogo/javascript/trustlogo.js'></script>
--add this before the existing <script> tag

 

AFTER:

 

In each of these files search for <head> </head> and add the following _before_ the current <script></script>

tags. You will end up with the original <script> tag _plus_ the one on the next line.

 

 

But I don't see <head> </head> or <script></script> in any of my files.... am I missing it? Where am I to add that code?

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  • 2 weeks later...

When it's secured, you get the padlock in the bottom of your browser.

 

Some browsers (like FireFox3) also show it in the address bar (the "awesome bar") at the top of the screen

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